Charlie Wardle, also known as the Mountain Coach, is a leading provider of outdoor adventures and challenges with a focus on achieving goals, as well as improving health and well-being. As someone who has overcome many personal hardships, Charlie is very passionate about helping others overcome their challenges and improve their health and is a renowned motivational speaker. He has delivered hundreds of talks and workshops on stress, anxiety, depression, confidence, success, and happiness. Now a highly sought-after speaker, Charlie delivers talks for leading clients, leaving his audience with many valuable takeaways.
Before embarking on his journey to becoming The Mountain Coach, Charlie spent several years working in finance. He is highly qualified with a degree in Accountancy and Finance from the University of Exeter, an MBA from Cranfield School of Management and is an ACA Chartered Accountant, qualifying with PwC. Moreover, Charlie has held senior positions in finance, including Head of Finance for BT and Finance Director for Elsevier.
In 2008, he founded Climb Your Mountain, a charity dedicated to assisting people with climbing their own personal mountains. Believing in the transformative power of the outdoors, Charlie helps people develop their resilience through guided adventures, helping them improve their physical and mental health. Furthermore, he provides several health and well-being books, online video workshops and seminars. Moreover, Charlie has written several books, such as A Practical Guide to Beating Depression, where he shares his knowledge and insight into overcoming adversity and provides his readers with valuable techniques to help them navigate difficult times.
He went on to launch The Mountain Coach in 2016, where he organises, manages, and leads groups on hikes, climbs and outdoor adventures, and offers personal coaching sessions and workshops for individuals and companies. Charlie is very passionate about the mountains and improving the lives of others by exposing them to the outdoors and offering them his insight and personal experience of overcoming adversity.
In November 2021, Charlie was diagnosed with Stage 3 Head & Neck Cancer and with intensive Radiotherapy, Chemotherapy and later via a salvaged Neck dissection surgery he is now Cancer free and passionate about helping others deal with life-changing challenges such as this and having transformed the lives of thousands of people, he is now a highly popular motivational speaker for corporate events. Book Charlie Wardle now!
Social Media
Books
A Practical Guide to Beating Depression
A Practical Guide to Overcoming Anxiety
A Practical Guide to Increasing Confidence
Charlie Wardle's official speaking topics include:
The Climb within us all
A powerful and personal story of overcoming depression, leaving the corporate world to help others and discovering the power of the mountains. We all face personal mountains to climb during our lives and this talk will show that with understanding, effort and patience, all mountains can be climbed, no matter how difficult they may be. Informative, motivating and inspiring, focused on how you can overcome challenges and improve your mental health. As Sir Edmond Hillary wrote after he became the first person to climb Mount Everest ‘It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves’.
Climbing through the darkness
One in two of us will be faced with cancer at some stage in our lives. Diagnosed with Stage 3 Cancer in late 2021, I had to go through brutal treatment and a very dark period. This talk is about being resilient, finding the strength to keep going through adversity, lessons learnt from the experience and how to deal with life changing challenges such as this. As Sir Winston Churchill famously said ‘When going through hell, keep going’. If you can keep climbing through the darkness with motivation and hope then you will once again see the sunshine.
Let’s Climb Together
This talk is about how to improve the performance and productivity of teams by focusing more on their Wellbeing. Using an example of a climb up a mountain as a representation of a team working in their organisation, we will highlight how best to climb together. Understanding all the objectives, looking to learn and develop on each climb and creating an environment and culture of empathy and enjoyment. Teams will become stronger, more resilient and happier. It’s not a race to the summit, as Confucius said ‘Happiness is not at the top of the mountain, but in how we climb’.
Official Feedback from In-Person & Virtual Events
“Today, on International Men's Day, we had the privilege of hosting Charlie Wardle at Briggs of Burton Global Technical Centre. Charlie shared an inspiring and educational session with our team, drawing on personal experiences with Cancer and Depression and offering insights on resilience, motivation, health, and wellbeing. Through his talk, Charlie explored practical ways to manage life's challenges and highlighted the positive role models who influenced his journey, including Mountaineer Kenton Cool, Rugby Legend Jonny Wilkinson, and Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson. A big thank you to Charlie for encouraging open discussions about men's mental health and demonstrating the importance of creating supportive environments where everyone can thrive.” Amanda, HR Global Lead, Briggs of Burton Plc
"Charlie recently came to our end-of-year meeting and delivered an exceptional, inspiring and insightful talk about how to deal with adversity. The talk really put into perspective what is important and how, despite how we may all feel about unexpected challenges, we do have the strength and resilience to overcome these obstacles, learn and grow and come out the other side stronger. Emotional, insightful, inspiring, and brilliant, Charlie delivered a human story we can all relate to. Thank you!" Jamie, Groups Sales Director, Supermax Health
"This evening I had the honour of listening to an incredibly inspirational talk by Charlie Wardle at the Porsche Centre Nottingham. Charlie’s talk “Climbing through the darkness” is a heartfelt, honest and deeply moving account of Charlie’s recent battle with cancer and how his passion for mountain climbing helped him overcome huge obstacles. He had over 200 people hooked on every word, and so much for people to go away with from the evening. What an inspiration.” – Geoff, IT Infrastructure Leader, Moloco
"Charlie recently delivered a workshop to our LEPS Marketing team at Virgin Media O2. The workshop Charlie had created for us was really engaging, thought-provoking and easily transferable to our day-to-day working lives. We all came away from the session with a new sense of direction and a new way to develop how we collaborate as a team. I still hear around the office, “How would this get us to the top of our mountain?”. Thank you, Charlie, it was a perfect way for us to end our offsite event, feeling positive and ready to take on our future professional challenges." - Samantha, Partner Marketing Manager (Public Sector & Enterprise) Virgin Media O2 Business
"Charlie recently did a talk for us at an East Midlands Chamber of Commerce event at the Hilton, Nottingham. Thank you to Charlie Wardle. Everyone will agree that you were truly inspirational. It mustn’t have been easy sharing such personal life challenges with us, but you touched everyone in the room and still managed to turn it into a positive. Loved your quote!" - Lauren, Events Manager, East Midlands Chamber of Commerce
"Charlie is an expert with a wealth of knowledge in the field of mountain climbing, hiking, fitness and wellbeing. He is a strong natural speaker delivering inspirational and motivational speeches on matters relating to resilience, mental health and personal goals. In my time working with Charlie, he has demonstrated a great ability to move an audience with his powerful and thought-provoking true stories. His voice is authentic and down-to-earth. He has an innate wisdom that has to be shared. His speeches really do move mountains!" - Marianne, Voice & Dialect Coach
"Charlie’s talk on anxiety and confidence was really informative, interesting and helpful. He engaged with the audience well and covered a wide range of topics, exploring why you may become anxious and suggested several ways to manage those feelings and how to increase confidence. Thank you for a great session." - Marijke
- 2016 - Chief Executive, The Mountain Coach
- 2008 - Chief Executive, Climb Your Mountain
- 2007 - Finance Director, Elsevier
- 2005 - Head of Finance, BT plc
How to hire Charlie Wardle
Contact the Champions Speakers Agency to provisionally enquire about hiring Charlie Wardle for your next event, today. To get in touch, simply call an official booking agent on 0207 1010 553 or email us at [email protected] for more information.
** We do NOT accept requests for autographs, signed merchandise, fan mail, birthday messages or any other non-commercial contact with the speakers or acts. Each speaker on the website may not have necessarily worked with Champions in the past but are known to perform such engagements within the industry.
